On the Occasion of November 8th, 2016: An Earnest Appeal To Those on "The Fence"

Alas and Alack!For a number of years I’ve argued for Independents, Centrists, Moderates, and Third Ways. I’ve hoped that the Big Two party duopoly will end. I’ve dreamed that the gerrymandering of Congressional districts -- perhaps the single biggest disgrace to our democratic system -- will end. I’ve longed for reform to the primary system such that Moderates stand a chance, rather than the preaching-to-the-choir political Immoderates the primaries are predetermined to produce. (See my social media history if you need evidence.)

Alas and alack. It’s not be -- at least not in this election. So, what’s a citizen to do? Not vote -- like my grandmother always did -- since the system is “all about the money”? (Her analysis, which wasn’t far off.) Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils? That’s not very palatable, though it is a prudential principle we rely on in daily life. Or, to riff on Admiral Farragut -- “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! I’m going to vote my conscience!” Or, perhaps, like the woman who yelled down at me from a second-story window when I was canvassing: “I’m voting for the Lord Jesus Christ! The Bible says a woman should not have headship over a man -- so I am not voting for That Woman!” (Just to spoil stereotypes -- she was African-American.)

​​"'Damn the torpedoes ... I'm going to vote my conscience!'"​

Mutual IncomprehensibilitiesWell, as things turn out, I am voting for That Woman. And, I’m not doing so holding my nose. No, I’m doing it with one nostril shut. That’s going to be a trick, I know. There’s plenty of stuff I dislike about Hillary Clinton. There’s also plenty I happen to like. (Litigating this is not my primary purpose, here.)

On the other hand, it is utterly incomprehensible to me that someone would happily vote for That Man. If you’re happily voting for Donald Trump -- indeed, if you're even voting for him with one nostril shut -- then I don’t know what to tell you, except: I wish the best for you. May God Bless You. May He also cause your car to not start on Election Day. Many of you are “my people” -- I grew up with you, a Son of The South, a True Red Stater. However, somehow in the intervening years, you and I took starships to different universes. It breaks my heart, but as they say: It is what it is. ​

Because..... For all of Clinton's issues and baggage -- as documented so objectively by the Limbaugh-Hannity-Bannon-Fox-Falwell Political-Industrial Gas Complex, and immortalized for our grandchildren’s sake in edifying Internet memes comparing cockroaches favorably to her -- I see no equivalence between the two. In terms of temperament, experience, ethics, policy, faith -- you name it -- Clinton is better, by a long shot, than Trump. If you find this totally ridiculous, there’s really no need to read further. We can return to our different universes.

​"I justify my intrusion into your private political choice on the grounds that it affects my wife, my kids, me, and The Republic I cherish."

Instead, the people I’m writing for here -- you, Dear Reader -- understand these points. Perhaps you’re on The Fence. You’re leaning toward Clinton in your head but are unable to do so in your heart, or vice versa. Or you’re on the fence between Clinton and a Third Party Candidate. Or between Clinton and that pesky thing called Conscience. Or, perhaps you’re not on The Fence at all. You’ve jumped in with both feet for a Third Party Candidate, following either Conscience, Message-Sending, or both.

If these describe you, then I’m writing for you.I am -- no doubt presumptuously -- asking you to vote for Clinton. I justify my intrusion into your private political choice on the grounds that it affects my wife, my kids, me, and The Republic I cherish. If this sounds selfish, forgive me. I call it rational self-interest. In any event, my vote affects you also. So we should talk.

On Wasting VotesNo one wants their vote to be wasted. We all want our votes to count. Otherwise -- what’s the point? I recently read an analysis of the mathematics of voting by Stephen Weese of the Foundation for Economic Education. (My thanks to Mr. Justin Lowenthal for pointing me to Weese’s article.)

Weese “runs the numbers” and comes to the not very surprising conclusion that my vote doesn’t really count that much in the grand scheme! Our “first past the post” voting system -- if one candidate beats another by a single vote then he / she wins the Presidency -- compounded by the oddities of the Electoral College system mean that many votes are “wasted”.

So, in a race with two candidates and one hundred voters, if candidate X wins 58 votes and candidate Y wins 42 votes, 58 of all votes cast are wasted (=42+(58-42)). Or, in a race with three candidates and one hundred voters, if candidate X wins 38 votes, candidate Y wins 32 votes, and candidate Z wins 30 votes, 68 of all votes cast are wasted (=32+30+(38-32)).

Weese concludes that it is misguided for an individual voter to worry about his / her particular vote being wasted on a third party candidate. He raises the (infamous) example of the 2000 election between Bush and Gore. Many people blame Ralph Nader for tipping the balance in Bush’s favor, since Naderites were inclined to vote Democratic rather than Republican. Because the election came down to “hanging chads” in Florida, Democratic votes in (say) California above and beyond the threshold to win that state’s Electoral College electors were not merely wasted in that state. These excess votes were also unavailable to help the Democrats in Florida, meaning they were doubly wasted for Gore. Moreover -- and this is Weese’s point -- these excess Democratic votes in California were just as wasted as were any Nader vote in the Golden State.

"To which I say: Try telling this to a Naderite after the invasion of Iraq..."​

To which I say: Try telling this to a Naderite after the invasion of Iraq. No doubt many such wished, after the fact, that they had voted not for a Message Sender but instead for a leader that would have acted differently in a Post - 9/11 world. Weese does say that ifFloridian Naderites had knownhow things would turn out relative to the overall election (not to mention the country’s trajectory afterwards!) they might have voted differently. And, to Weese’s point, hindsight is, as they say, 20/20

Still, the overall impression you get from Weese is that, as unfortunate as Florida 2000 might have been, potential Third Party voters really shouldn’t fret about the impacts their votes have on the overall election. That the idea that a Third Party candidate might “spoil” the overall vote -- like Nader almost certainly did by way of Florida in 2000 -- is both nonsensical and unfair to Third Party voters who are just following their consciences. After all, look at all those wasted Democratic votes in California!

Voting RationallyAll this seems wrongheaded to me. First of all, regardless of technical terminology, does it even make sense to speak of a “wasted” vote? After all, votes are fungible. That is to say, if I vote for Hillary Clinton and you do also, our votes as votes are interchangeable. It’s not as if vote-casting is a timed affair, as if all the votes that come in before the magic threshold is reached really count for a win, while those that come in afterwards don’t. Nor are there any other specifying “marks” for my vote versus yours. A vote is a vote is a vote. If a group of voters together push their candidate well over the magic threshold, then all that can be said is that they, together, accomplished something significant. They, as a group, elected the winning candidate. Saying that any vote is “wasted” is neither helpful nor accurate. Voting is a communal act. Citizens do it together.

Second, if I desire a certain outcome in an election -- or more appropriate to our current predicament, really do not wanta certain outcome -- then as an ethical (more on that below) voter, isn’t it incumbent on me to consider all the relevant possibilities as to how my vote and those of others might play out, given what I know? If you want to label this so-called “tactical voting," then so be it. Given our current crop of candidates -- and in fact, most candidates at most times - there’s always going to be an element of “picking your poison.” I prefer to call it voting rationally. As a rational agent, one who seeks to minimize the chance of (horrific!) damage to our Republic and to maximize the possibility of its genuine flourishing, shouldn’t I size up the hard facts the best I can and make a cold, calculated choice? This is not a time to be squeamish. Yes, it’s ugly. But, again, it is what it is.

"As a rational agent ... shouldn't I size up the facts the best I can and make a cold, calculated choice?"​

The Conscientious VoterI know many fine folks -- conservatives and people of deep faith -- who are disgusted with Donald Trump. They’ve shared, linked to, written about, and commented at great length about how awful they think he is. Yet, they still cannot vote for Hillary Clinton. They’d like to vote Third Party -- something I can sympathize with. Yet, even there, they’re foiled: There’s the Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Jill Stein, both of whom are underwhelming and anyway aren't conservative. Some are now lobbying for Utahan Evan McMullin -- though to be honest, he seems mostly a protest vote for a genuine Conservative.

A phrase many use here is “in good conscience.” Their conscience forbids them from voting for Clinton -- usually due to the abortion issue. Now, conscience is pretty darned important: It’s one of those things that separates us from the apes. It’s constitutive of being human. Someone who consistently fails to live "according to conscience” is either a moral Pygmy or a sociopath. But, to be fair, who would actually not vote their conscience? Most people voting for Trump are voting their conscience. (I leave aside The Deplorable Ones of the so-called “Alt-Right” who fall into the Pygmy-and-sociopath basket.)

What I would say to those on The Fence or who are voting Third Party due to reasons of conscience is ... Please make sure you’ve really thought through the full scope to which conscience should apply. Yes, conscience is (obviously) pertinent to the specific moral / ethical issues for which a candidate stands. If I were a devout Catholic, I can see how voting for Clinton would be problematic. But there is more at stake in this election than any specific moral / ethical issue. It’s been said time after time but it’s still true: This Election Is Different.

"There is more at stake in this election than any specific moral / ethical issue."

For the charge sheet against Donald Trump is long, is it not? Put aside his made-for-TV sexual antics. What really counts is that he’s a narcissist and a megalomaniac. That he’s not only an inveterate liar (Why do conservatives believe his promises about abortion and the Supreme Court?), but he makes up reality as he goes. That he is temperamentally unfit to hold the most important job in the whole world. That he is a misogynist, a xenophobe, a quasi-racist, and a proto-fascist. That he is vandalizing our democracy on his way out the door, stupidly and irresponsibly claiming that the vote will be “rigged” (if he loses!) That, as Andrew Sullivan put it, his election would be an “extinction-level event” for our democracy. Consider, too, his stated policies (to the degree that these are coherent): He wants to build a big, ugly Wall on our southern border. He wants to uproot and expel millions of people that live among us peaceably. He thinks that nuclear proliferation is really not such a terrible idea after all. He's suggested we might not come to the aid of a NATO ally, if they've not "paid up." And so on!

To cut to the point at hand: I absolutely get the fact about The Unborn, the Precious Ones. But what about The Born Ones? To be blunt: What about the very real possibility that a man like Trump could cause a nuclear war? If you don’t believe that’s a real possibility, then I think you’re missing something.

Voting Ethically:What does it mean to vote ethically? Obviously, voting conscientiously is a necessary condition. But, I submit it’s not a sufficient condition. You’ve also got to vote rationally. You’ve got to take into account all the scenarios, including the very real possibility that a vote for a Third Party candidate could sway the election to Trump. Given that possibility, is it ethical to vote Third Party in this election? (Or, for that matter, to stay home?)

A friend wrote that a vote for a Third Party candidate is not a vote for Trump. That’s true: Obviously, who you vote for is who you vote for. But is it not confused, perhaps even disingenuous, to say that your voting for a particular candidate doesn’t have knock-on effects? Your vote is not an atom, living in splendid isolation. It has consequences. If your vote marginally increases the possibility that the Apocalypse is in the offing, that’s something to think about.

"Your vote is not an atom, living in splendid isolation. It has consequences."

Moreover, it seems hypocritical and pusillanimous to rail about Trump for six months and yet to be squeamish at the very end about voting for Hillary Clinton. To keep an eye on the polls and to only pull the lever for her, if it’s absolutely necessary. To, as it were, “draft” on other voters, like an Electoral Nascar driver.

But isn’t it bad form to vote for “the lesser of Two Evils”? No, not necessarily. By definition, the lesser of two evils is lesser. If your foot is gangrenous, the only rational choice is to cut it off. It seems to me that many conservatives are suffering from cognitive dissonance. Their horror of Trump hasn’t caught up with their long-held and deep-seated objections to Clinton. Consequently, they’re looking for another way to vote. But I can see no other way.

​I long for a day when we’ve got better political choices. I’m a committed Centrist. I hate the Party Duopoly, though it seems likely to endure. Maybe our political elite will actually learn from this election. One can only hope. But, right now, on November 8th, 2016, the choice is clear.